Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My sweet Emme has been having a hard time in school this year. A very hard time. She is so smart, and young, and a little drama queen. Put her together with another little girl named "M" and they are trouble. With a capital T, and that rhymes with flea, and that's about the length of her attention span.

They go to the bathroom, starting singing and making up dance routines, and forget to go back to class. They make faces at each other, start laughing, and disrupt the whole class. Emme breaks into song in class, and M joins along. They laugh and laugh, and can't stop. Then they fight and argue, and that disrupts the class.

We've had to break up this friendship - her teacher says she's never seen such a toxic friendship. As there's only one class per grade at their school, the best we can do is put them on opposite sides of the room and pray. A lot.

I love her energy and her spunk. I love the way she makes up dances and cheers. Her creativity and joy, and kindness.

I think I just need to get her a seatbelt....oops. I had a boss once who threatened to put a seatbelt on my desk chair. Hmmmmmm.....

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

So I get home from work last night, and there's a note on my door. From the apartment manager. Usually, this is a bad thing. Like a warning that my kids have been riding bikes again. Or scooters. Right up there with hard drugs, if you ask me.

This is a doozy. It references some unnamed legislation that has banned all open fire gas or charcoal grills from within 10 feet of any flammable construction. Like a fence. Or a wall.

A little research - fire codes are harder to track down than Sasquatch. But alas, it's true.

I'm not a great griller. Okay, I'm barely a good griller. But it's so - Californian.

So, no more hamburger pucks for us. No more blackened hot dogs that are still cold in the middle. I guess it's time to look up George Foreman now.